Narrator:One hundred and one years ago—on September 11th, 1906—Gandhi obtained a pledge of militant nonviolence from all 3,000 Indians seated or standing in the Old Empire theater in Johannesburg, South Africa, to defy the colonial government’s discriminatory laws restricting the lives of “Asiatics”. Most of these people had come from India as indentured servants to work in fields and mines, and after working off their contracts many—-or their children—-became tradesmen or craftsmen. They, like the British colonists in the provinces of Natal and Transvaal, numbered in the tens of thousands among the half million Zulu and other Black Africans. Although Queen Victoria years back in London had decreed that all subjects in the British empire shall be treated alike regardless of race or religion, the white colonial parliaments passed and enforced restrictions on Indians and Africans.

As a lawyer, the 36-year-old Gandhi had handled many complaints of subjugated people, but as a political and moral leader, he knew that by and large South African Indians had had enough. Inspired by the bottom-up Russian revolution of 1905—only the year before—he helped draft demands on the government for full rights as British subjects, and tried to convince officials in London as well as in South Africa. He experienced only rejection of the Indian proposals. What to do? Gandhi had read and understood the activist peace-oriented teachings of Hindu, Christian and Muslim scriptures, and of Tolstoy, Thoreau and Ruskin. He urged everyone gathered in the theater to examine his or her heart, and stand if they were willing to accept the determination and sacrifice entailed by nonviolent resistance—what came to be called satyagraha—Truth Force. All enthusiastically pledged.

We have in our hands a packet of readings of Gandhi and other practitioners of satyagraha. The first is the very words of Gandhi at the Johannesburg assembly. I suggest that one of you read those words for all of us to hear. Then there are several more readings illustrating how Truth Force or “militant nonviolence” (which is Martin Luther King’s usage) inspired later efforts of ordinary people, acting together, to achieve justice. After we have read and heard these passages, we will have ample time for discussion—particularly how such experiences might help us achieve justice and full human potential in today’s world. The dialogue can continue in days and months to come.

For your convenience each paragraph or section of each reading is numbered. A new number can be a signal for another person here to take a turn reading. It might be easiest if we simply go around the circle, one after another. The sections in italics are what I’m reading now, filling in between selections, and it might be simplest if you let me read all those sections when they occur. Who would like to read Gandhi’s words?

Gandhi 1906

(1) “...I know that pledges and vows are, and should be, taken on rare occasions. A man who takes a vow every now and then is sure to stumble. But if I can imagine a crisis in the history of the Indian community of South Africa when it would be in the fitness of things to take pledges, that crisis is surely now. There is wisdom in taking serious steps with great caution and hesitation. But caution and hesitation have their limits, and we have now passed them. The Government has taken leave of all sense of decency. We would only be betraying our unworthiness and cowardice, if we cannot stake our all in the face of the conflagration which envelops us, and sit watching it with folded hands. There is no doubt, therefore, that the present is a proper occasion for taking pledges. But every one of us must think out for himself if he has the will and the ability to pledge himself. Resolutions of this nature cannot be passed by a majority vote. Only those who take a pledge can be bound by it. This pledge must not be taken with a view to produce an effect on outsiders. No one should trouble to consider what impression it might have upon the local Government, the Imperial Government, or the Government of India. Every one must only search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only will his pledge bear fruit.

(2) “A few words now as to the consequences. Hoping for the best, we may say that if a majority of the Indians pledge themselves to resistance and if all who take the pledge prove true to themselves, the Ordinance may not be passed, and if passed, may soon be repealed. It may be that we may not be called upon to suffer at all. But if on the one hand a man who takes a pledge must be a robust optimist, on the other hand he must be prepared for the worst. Therefore I want to give you an idea of the worst that might happened to us in the present struggle.

(3) “Imagine that all of us present here numbering 3,000 at most pledge ourselves. Imagine again that the remaining 10,000 Indians take no such pledge. We will only provoke ridicule in the beginning. Again it is quite possible that in spite of the present warning some or many of those who pledge themselves may weaken at the very first trial. We may have to go to jail, where we may be insulted. We may have to go hungry and suffer extreme heat or cold. Hard labor may be imposed upon us. We may be flogged by rude warders. We may be fined heavily and our property may be attached and held up to auction if there are only a few resisters left. Opulent today, we may be reduced to abject poverty tomorrow. We may be deported. Suffering from starvation and similar hardships in jail, some of us may fall ill and even die. In short, therefore, it is not at all impossible that we may have to endure every hardship that we can imagine, and wisdom lies in pledging ourselves on the understanding that we shall have to suffer all that and worse. If someone asks me when and how the struggle may end, I may say that if the entire community manfully stands the test, the end will be near. If many of us fall back under storm and stress, the struggle will be prolonged. But I can boldly declare, and with certainty, that so long as there is even a handful of men true to their pledge, there can only be one end to the struggle, and that is victory.

(4) “A word about my personal responsibility. If I am warning you of the risks attendant upon the pledge, I am at the same time inviting you to pledge yourselves, and I am fully conscious of my responsibility in the matter. It is possible that a majority of these present here may take the pledge in a fit of enthusiasm or indignation but may weaken under the ordeal, and only a handful may be left to face the final test. Even then there is only one course open to someone like me—to die but not to submit to the law. It is quite unlikely, but even if every one else flinched leaving me alone to face the music, I am confident that I would never violate my pledge. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying this out of vanity, but I wish to put you, especially the leaders upon the platform, on your guard. I wish respectfully to suggest it to you that if you have not the will or the ability to stand firm even when you are perfectly isolated, you must not only not take the pledge yourselves, but you must declare your opposition before the resolution is put to the meeting and before its members begin to take pledges, and you must not make yourselves parties to the resolution. Although we are going to take the pledge in a body, no one should imagine that default on the part of one or many can absolve the rest from their obligation. Every one should fully realize his responsibility, then only pledge himself independently of others and understand that he himself must be true to his pledge, even unto death, no matter what others do.”

(5) Gandhiji spoke to this effect and resumed his seat. The audience heard him word by word in perfect quiet. The resolution was then put, as a solemn oath with God as witness, and carried by acclamation, the whole audience rising as one man and cheering wildly.... The following day the amended bill, popularly known as the Black Acts, was passed by the colonial Legislative Council without a dissenting vote. Inasmuch as the ordinance affected a coloured race, it did not become immediately effective. Its operation was suspended “until signification of His Majesty’s pleasure thereupon,” as determined by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. [Pyarelal. Mahatma Gandhi Vol 3, The Birth of Satyagraha. 1986]

(6) Gandhi set up a “Passive Resistance Association” that picketed the act’s registration offices. What followed was a bonfire of registration cards outside a mosque, mass illegal border crossings into Transvaal, and a miners’ strike. Thousands went to jail—Gandhi himself three times. Finally, 8 years later, the government relented and withdrew the registration act along with other statutes that Indians found offensive. Hindus and Muslims, miners and merchants, had all joined in a campaign behind Gandhi’s leadership and, by breaking unjust laws and going to prison, had forced change. [Peter Ackerman & Jack DuVall, 2000, A Force More Powerful, p.64]

Gandhi left South Africa that same year, 1914, and returned to India. By this time he had taken a pledge of celibacy and simplicity, and focused for the rest of his life on truth, justice, nonviolence, and swaraj—self-rule, which meant both ruling one’s individual behavior and political rule by the people—community, not imperial authority. There, he set up many organizations and communities to build a new society as well as to fight, nonviolently, the British rule. He became a leader of the Indian National Congress, which included the future first president of free India, Jawaharlal Nehru, but remained a pillar of principle, not expediency.

(7) The world became aware of Gandhi in 1930 through his spectacular and successful Salt March. Every meal prepared in that vast society requires salt. The British rulers imposed a salt tax and decreed a state monopoly on the refining and sale of salt. The people suffered, and Gandhi made this a symbolic issue. After appealing to the British viceroy and getting the brush-off, Gandhi embarked on a nation-wide campaign of civil disobedience. The key to his nonviolent fight was non-cooperation with the commercial and political institutions which made India the crown jewel of the British empire. [DL]

(8) Rules for the conduct of civil disobedience were distributed and endorsements sought. The roles covered behavior for individuals, prisoners, and groups, and included guidelines for dealing with communal conflicts. The objective of nonviolent struggle was to show India the power latent within the nation... On March 12 Gandhi began a 26-day march from his ashram—a residential center for discipline and social service—near Ahmedabad. The destination was the beach at Dandi where he intended to pick up salt from the seashore, thereby disobeying the British Salt Law. “Ours is a nonviolent battle,” Gandhi said. Thousands lined the path and many joined the march. The British prohibited nationalist speeches for one month from March 7. Indian officials working for the British government were urged to resign. Gandhi taunted the British for being afraid to arrest him.

(9) During the 240-mile march, elsewhere in India, many acts of preparation, protest and defiance occurred. These included demonstrations by school boys. The national flag was hoisted. The mayor of Calcutta was arrested for making a seditious speech in Rangoon [Burma—then a British colony]. A war council of nonviolent leaders was organized in Poona. Provincial committees were organized to lead civil disobedience. A short pledge of nonviolent discipline was recommended by Jawaharlal Nehru (who only recently had favored violence). Indian national legislators resigned their positions. Plans were laid for mass civil disobedience to the Salt Law on April 6, when Gandhi would initiate the defiance.

(10) Gandhi reached the isolated beach at Dandi on the Gulf of Cambay on April 5. The next morning Gandhi left the bungalow to meet 4,000 followers who had arrived, and spend an hour in silent prayer and nationalist songs. After a brief swim in the sea, he scooped up salt and saltwater in his hands and 82 volunteers with spades dug salt from nearby deposits and carried them off in bags. The Salt Act was broken... A month later, after announcing further salt satyagraha actions, Gandhi was jailed.

(11) Two weeks after that the announced raid on the government salt depot at Dharasana, not far inland from Dandi, was pursued by new leaders and volunteers. Disciplined resisters, at one point as many as 2500, led by the prominent woman poet Sarojini Naidu, marched forward to demand the salt and were brutally beaten on their heads by heavy steel-shod bamboo rods (lathis) day after day. At times the unarmed volunteers marched in groups of 25 and sat waiting to be beaten. Many were taken to an improvised hospital camp, and several died. [Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, 2005, p106]

(12) Politics professor Thomas Weber has analyzed the campaign to see if lathi-wielding police were converted by the suffering of the satyagrahis. Quite the contrary: despite extensive injuries to protestors, with hundreds taken to hospitals, the beatings became worse. The British colonial government brazenly denied any police brutality, claiming that protesters had faked being injured. The campaign was a success due not to direct conversion, as postulated by Gandhi, but because of indirect conversion. United Press journalist Webb Miller reported on the campaign to an international audience, telling about the gallant and disciplined Indian protesters and challenging British government disinformation. This reporting (reprinted in BCA Dispatch, April 2006) helped turn international opinion against British colonial rule in India. Webb Miller and the international press served as vital links in a “great chain of nonviolence” [see works of Johan Galtung] between Indians and British rulers. [Brian Martin & Wendy Varney. Nonviolence Speaks: Communicating against repression. 2003, p.140.]

(13) Gandhi’s nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience worked. The secretary of state for India reported to the British House of Commons that 18 percent of the British decline in world trade was directly due to the Indian boycott of British textiles, liquor, etc. Gandhi and 100,000 other satyagrahis were released from jails and detention camps within five months after the Dharasana salt raid beatings. Gandhi reached an agreement with the Viceroy Lord Irwin which did not meet all the nationalists’ demands but, in Gandhi’s view, made it apparent that the British government recognized India as an equal with which it had to negotiate... With the strength of this movement, and with Britain weakened by World War II, independence for India and Pakistan finally came on August 15, 1947. [Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle, p.108]

Strategic nonviolence was not invented by Gandhi, although he developed and embodied it for the modern age. American independence from Britain was won is a similar way, although finally armies were recruited to drive the British military off the territory of the new United States. Ray Raphael’s 2001 book “A People’s History of the American Revolution” details how Massachusetts farmers and townsmen, without leaders, formed assemblies, humbled British magistrates, and drove them from their counties all over the state without firing a shot, in 1774. Of course these folk were in the majority and came together in public sometimes as armed militia, while the occupiers and tories were a minority.

The Danish people were occupied during World War II by the German army and bureaucrats. Whether or not many Danes knew of Gandhi, a nonviolent resistance spread rapidly over the country. Most of us know how they organized and transported most Danish Jews—hunted by the Nazis—to safety in Sweden. But they engaged in massive non-cooperation with Nazi orders regarding factory production, transportation, schooling, and anything of value to Germany. Here is one memorable example:

(14) When the Germans invaded, Arne Sejr was a 17-year-old schoolboy living with his parents in Slagelse, a small town in western Zealand. On his way to school on April 9, 1940, he was shocked by how friendly people were to the newly arrived soldiers and later how they applauded a German military band giving an open-air concert of Danish music. He picked up a copy of the local newspaper, which carried the king’s message telling citizens to behave like good Danes. “What’s a good Dane?” he asked himself. “How does a good Dane behave in a situation like this when his country is occupied by an enemy?”

(15) Sejr returned home and compiled his answers into what he called Ten Commandments for Danes. He typed out 25 copies which read:
1. You must not go to work in Germany and [occupied] Norway.
2. You shall do a bad job for the Germans.
3. You shall work slowly for the Germans.
4. You shall destroy important machines and tools.
5. You shall destroy everything which may be of benefit to the Germans.
6. You shall delay all transport.
7. You shall boycott German and Italian films and papers.
8. You must not shop at Nazis’ stores.
9. You shall treat traitors for what they are worth.
10. You shall protect anyone chased by the Germans.
Join the struggle for the freedom of Denmark!

(16) Sejr then made a list of Slagelse’s most influential citizens, including the mayor, bankers, doctors, and journalists. The next night he rode his bicycle to their homes and stuffed the Ten Commandments into their mail boxes. Soon he found that his fellow Danes’ public courtesy to the Germans masked considerable spirit for resistance, which Sejr found new ways to express. He and his friends put sugar in the gas tanks of German cars and army vehicles, and copied and mailed anti-German leaflets to high school students throughout the country. Before long his Ten Commandments would be passed from hand to hand and eventually became sacred to the Danes as they waged their national resistance. [Ackerman & DuVall,A Force More Powerful, p211-12]

Let’s turn now to America. The evil of racial prejudice and discrimination has plagued our society ever since the Civil War supposedly freed black slaves. Up to the Civil Rights Act in the 1964 the situation was not very different from that of the Indians in South Africa. The young African-American Baptist minister Martin Luther King, Jr., was keenly aware of the spirit and work of Gandhi. In 1959 he traveled to India to learn more from those who had been close to Gandhi. In the meantime in 1955 King, already a satyagrahi, led the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, successfully forcing the city to desegregate at least their buses, and crack the iron grip of segregation and oppression:

(17) For years, African-Americans expressed their complaints and outrage at ongoing mistreatment on the public buses. In many instances bus drivers would make rude or insulting remarks to passengers. African-Americans were often told to enter the bus in the front to pay the fare, and then to get off and re-board in the rear so as not to pass by any white people. One elderly gentleman who refused to reboard from the rear was even shot and killed by police officers...

(18) The mayor would not take serious steps to end such discrimination. ...On December 1, 1955, four African-Americans on a public bus were ordered to give up their seats to newly boarded whites, and stand. Three passengers stood up, but Mrs. Rosa Parks—a long-time activist prepared for this moment—quietly refused. She was subsequently arrested. Mrs. Parks had not planned on being the cause of a bus boycott, but later that evening when word of her arrest reached members of the Women’s Political Council—recently formed to challenge discrimination on buses—the group decided the time was ripe. Members spread the word and printed handbills asking African-American citizens to stay off the buses for a one-day boycott the following Monday to protest Mrs. Parks’ detention.

(19) When the day of the boycott arrived, even the participants were stunned at its near-total effectiveness. Buses drove around empty all day throughout the black neighborhoods. In the late afternoon a group of black religious, business, labor, academic, and civic leaders met to create the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). They elected Martin Luther King, Jr., as president.... By the second week of the boycott the MIA had created its own private carpool, with “dispatch” and “pickup” stations established all over Montgomery. Money was raised—donations poured in from all over the country, and new vehicles for the carpool were purchased. So the boycott continued with remarkable effectiveness. Many people still preferred to walk in order to visibly express their determination...

(20) White segregationists tried to end the boycott by police harassment such as threatening to arrest walkers for vagrancy, and drivers for non-existent traffic violations. Then Dr. King was informed that his house had been firebombed. He rushed home to find a large, angry crowd of supporters outside, many of them armed and prepared to use retaliatory violence against the white community. King calmed the crowd and appealed once more to discipline, nonviolence, and Christian love in the face of such attacks. Eventually everyone went home, later to respond in a disciplined fashion to yet another firebombing...

(21) When white city officials refused to concede to seating reforms on buses, MIA filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutional legality of segregation itself. When another bomb exploded and the black community held fast, Montgomery officials resorted to mass arrests. They called together the county grand jury to investigate the MIA for “conspiracy to destroy a legitimate business” [busing] and three weeks later the grand jury indicted more than 100 people on that charge... No one tried to evade arrest; in fact, dozens rushed to the police station to be arrested. Dr. King was convicted and fined. The other cases were put on hold pending King’s appeal... By this time the bus boycott had drawn a great deal of national and international attention, and the verdict against Dr. King helped to galvanize additional support for the boycott.

(22) Three months later the federal district court finally ruled on the MIA’s anti-segregation suit, announcing that bus segregation was indeed unconstitutional... But the City of Montgomery appealed to the Supreme Court... The boycott continued. False rumors were spread of misuse of funds and corruption within MIA, whose insurance was then canceled. A London firm announced it would provide the insurance. Then the city filed a motion in county court to outlaw the carpool, alleging it was “a private enterprise operating without a franchise.” This got the boycott leaders really worried, but only an hour before the local court granted the city’s injunction to halt carpool operations, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling affirming MIA’s claim that bus segregation laws were unconstitutional.

(23) While awaiting this mandate, the MIA worked to prepare the community for integrated buses. Workshops on nonviolent action were held, training people on how to react if insulted or attacked when they resumed riding the buses. Then on December 20—a year after Rosa Parks was arrested—federal marshals served the desegregation order on the city. The next day, blacks and whites rode together on integrated public transportation for the first time... A few days later buses were fired upon throughout the city, and on January 9 more homes were bombed, and black churches. But the African-American community maintained discipline and did not retaliate. Shortly thereafter the violence came to an abrupt halt. Desegregation proceeded at a smooth pace, and the integrated buses resumed normal operations... It was here in Montgomery that the tactics of nonviolent action were first employed on a large scale. Religiously inspired nonviolence emerged as a guiding social doctrine. [from Joshua Paulson, in Sharp 2005, p157-165]

Satyagraha began in South Africa in 1906, but what happened there after the British left in the late 1940s? The white Afrikaners instituted apartheid against blacks and other nonwhites. Now the struggle for justice extended to almost the whole population, not just the Indians.

(24) When the struggle by the African National Congress (ANC) resulted in a relatively peaceful transformation to democracy in 1994 it was after a long, hard and difficult period with mainly nonviolent means. In the eyes of the oppressive regime the few and not very successful examples of violent actions used by the ANC justified the use of violent means against every black person in the whole country. On the level of physical force the state was superior—the apartheid regime argued that it had to use violence to prevent the “terrorists” from destroying the country. The large majority of actions in the anti-apartheid struggle were conducted nonviolently. The many strikes, demonstrations and protests were met with brute force from police and military troops, but in most cases the activists did not depart from their nonviolent strategy. The freedom struggle in South Africa was dominated by nonviolent actions and they played a vital role in the development of the new state.

(25) One very important aspect of the ANC struggle is the long-term training of personnel who could play important roles after the liberation. In exile they trained people who should be able to take over positions in the new administration, education system, and other important jobs. They were able to build up a group of people who could prepare the takeover and make plans for the first period. The decision to include representatives of the former white government in the new ANC-led government showed the need and will to build the new country together. Constructive will showed itself to be stronger than revenge and hate. Another sign of this attitude was the Truth Commission to deal with the violations of human rights committed during the apartheid period. That the commission also took up crimes by ANC activists emphasizes this willingness to be constructive in the building of the new society. [Jorgen Johansen, Gandhi Marg, 2005-6, 27 #3-4, p371-2]

Although nonviolence played a key role in the triumph over apartheid,“free trade” policies of the new black government have continued to oppress the majority, for example, by pricing drinking water and electric power out of reach of many. Can strategic nonviolence be used against heartless capitalism?
Let’s finish our readings by hearing how nonviolence helped overcome oppressive communism in Poland, and oppressive feudalism & capitalism in Bolivia. [Johansen, op cit.]

Poland

(26) In many ways the Iranian revolution (1979) set a new trend for successful revolutions in the two decades that followed. The next actor on the scene is the Solidarity in Poland. After two centuries of armed uprisings, the Polish workers in 1980 tried to fight the regime without arms. In August of that year industrial strikes occurred in several parts of the country. Starting in the shipyards in Gdansk, the strikes spread to many sectors and cities in the country. The scope of the protests and the lack of violence created a situation where the government was forced to start negotiations with the newly formed free trade unions. By the end of the movement close to 10 million people in a total population of 35 million joined the protests. The unions created a multitude of diverse forums for free expression of opinions.

(27) Early in 1981 the new unions were declared illegal and forced to go underground. The underground Solidarity created a rich variety of nonviolent actions. One year later they were back on the streets and went on with their activies... I want to remind the reader about the large number of negotiations with a variety of parties which took place in 1989 and which resulted in a new regime in Poland.

Bolivia

(28) One of the other early examples is from Bolivia. After five general strikes with successive increases in participation, the generals had to step down in 1982 and hand over governmental power to those who won the elections of 1980. The nonviolent mobilization started in 1977 when three women from the mining districts started a hunger strike in the capital city, La Paz. The well-known indigenous miner’s wife Domitila Barrios de Chungara joined them and soon many supportive activities followed around the country. Bolivia is not well-known for nonviolent resistance, but there are a lot of interesting parallels with what happened in Poland. In both cases, the workers’ organizations co-operated with the farmers’ unions and generated a strong coalition, which decided to use nonviolent means. The armed tradition from Che Guevara turned out to be less effective and popular than strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts. [Finally, in December, 2005, Bolivians elected the indigenous socialist Evo Morales as president.]

Thanks for your attention and your great reading. Suppose we take a short break, and come back for general discussion. During this break, please read the following suggested questions for discussion, and add your own.

Some Discussion Questions

____What evils, injustices, or bad systems affect you directly or indirectly? Which is more important: war on terrorism or defense of democracy? What disasters loom which might be prevented?

____Which can be remedied by election campaigning, citizen pressure groups, law suits, and other constitutional means, and which must employ alternative methods? Who is prepared to use either traditional or alternative methods? How can you help to prepare enough people to make a major difference?

____It has been said that the US government, corporations, and fundamentalists are moving toward fascism. When will arbitrary presidential power become intolerable? Who will not tolerate it? What forms will such intolerance take? How will the lessons of satyagraha be practiced? What will be your role?

____Long ago labor unions have used organizing and strikes—even general strikes—to get economic and social justice. Are these useful models today?

____How do news services, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines influence struggles for justice and achievement of human potential? Does it matter that many of these are corporate owned? Are public and independent media or news services effective? How about alternative media such as forums, telephone, internet, books, zines, and word of mouth?

____How important is it to have a vision of a new future? Can you give an example?

____Gandhi said you should live the change you want. Can you give an example?

____Gene Sharp lists 198 methods of nonviolent conflict (see Resistance Tactics). Choose several of these at random, and discuss how you might apply them to today’s problems.

____Gandhi made it clear that strategic nonviolence requires both training and courage. How would you help young people and others to be courageous?

____In the face of persistent injustice, Gandhi knew that strategic nonviolence was the best course. However, he preferred fighting to doing nothing. Can you think of a fighting group that has switched to strategic nonviolence, or has developed a positive, constructive program which addresses injustice?

____Can the changes you have been discussing be accomplished by individuals or task forces without money? How much money is necessary? Whose money? What necessary work must be salaried or waged? Can pay be “in kind”—bartered, or bypassed with group arrangements?

The pine-tree flag of New England was adopted by the New England Confeder-
acy in 1643, was flown at the battle of Bunker Hill, and even today is the official flag of Lincoln County, Maine.
The brave bird at the top right--
the puffin---is at home on our New England coast.